Finnish and Swedish in Helsinki

Studying Finnish and Swedish

Language courses

Through the finnishcourses.fi service, you can find the Finnish course that suits you best in Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo or Kauniainen. The best way to find Swedish-language courses is to use the link on the front page of the service. The service is available in Finnish, English and Russian.

Registrations for the language courses usually take place 2–8 weeks before the beginning of the course. Some of the courses require applications. You can enrol for some courses online.

The language courses provided by the Employment and Economic Development Office (Työ- ja elinkeinotoimisto) are applied for through the office itself. Ask for more information from your local Employment and Economic Development Office.

Practise speaking Finnish

Libraries in Helsinki organise Language Cafés where you can practise speaking Finnish. They are intended for everyone who wishes to learn to speak Finnish. Discussions at Language Cafés take place in Finnish, so it would be good if you know some Finnish. Language Cafés are free of charge. You can obtain more information on Language Cafés from libraries.

National Certificate of Language Proficiency

Helsinki provides the opportunity to obtain the National Certificate of Language Proficiency (yleinen kielitutkinto) in Finnish or Swedish. The website of the Finnish National Board of Education (Opetushallitus) features a search engine that you can use to check where and when you can obtain the certificate.

First, select an area. Once you have selected an area, you will get a link to the InfoFinland pages of the area you selected.

When you browse various topics on the website, a link to a similar topic on the pages of the area you selected will appear in this menu.

You can also delete or change your area selection.

The link index contains a listing of topics related to this page. Through the links you can access the InfoFinland basic information pages (Moving to Finland, Living in Finland, Information about Finland).

If you are an employee, entrepreneur, student, returnee, refugee, asylum seeker or family member of a person living in Finland, you will find information particularly suited to your situation in life on these InfoFinland webpages. From these webpage, you will find the information you need quickly and in a concise form.